In an authentic flight simulator, the instructor is traditionally located behind the learner and is thus unable to observe the pilot's visual attention (i.e. gaze behaviour). The focus of this article is visual attention in relation to pilots' professional learning in an Airbus A320 Full Flight Simulator. For this purpose, we measured and analysed…

Walter Benjamin's writings on children and their books reflect a desire to imagine different possibilities in perceiving and engaging with the world. Benjamin's child, like the flâneur, experiences a particular way of seeing unfettered by instrumentality and characterised by a sense of wonder, aimlessness of path or purpose, and keen interest in…

Visual expertise in medicine has been a subject of research since many decades. Interestingly, it has been investigated from two little related fields, namely the field that focused mainly on the visual search aspects whilst ignoring higher-level cognitive processes involved in medical expertise, and the field that mainly focused on these…

Readers continuously receive parafoveal information about the upcoming word in addition to the foveal information about the currently fixated word. Previous research (Inhoff, Radach, Starr, & Greenberg, 2000) showed that the presence of a parafoveal word that was similar to the foveal word facilitated processing of the foveal word. We used the…

Eyewitnesses instructed to close their eyes during retrieval recall more correct and fewer incorrect visual and auditory details. This study tested whether eye closure causes these effects through a reduction in environmental distraction. Sixty participants watched a staged event before verbally answering questions about it in the presence of…

Previous research has shown that the detection of a visual target can be guided not only by the temporal integration of two percepts, but also by integrating a percept and an image held in working memory. Behavioral and event-related brain potential (ERP) measures were obtained in a target detection task that required temporal integration of 2…

Mechanisms of selective attention exert a powerful influence on visual perception. We examined whether attentional selection is necessary for generation of the vivid colours experienced by individuals with grapheme-colour synaesthesia. Twelve synaesthetes and matched controls viewed rapid serial displays of nonsense characters within which were…

Central scotomas--areas of the nonseeing retina within the central 20 degrees of the visual field--are present in approximately 90% of vision rehabilitation patients. They vary in size and shape and can be small or large, symmetrical or asymmetrical, round or irregularly shaped. Most central scotomas border fixation on one side and can be overcome…

Interhemispheric competition between homologous areas in the human brain is believed to be involved in a wide variety of human behaviors from motor activity to visual perception and particularly attention. For example, patients with lesions in the posterior parietal cortex are unable to selectively track objects in the contralesional side of…

Neuroscience research provides new models for understanding vision that challenge Betty Edwards' (1979, 1989, 1999) assumptions about right brain vision and common conventions of "realistic" drawing. Enlisting PET and fMRI technology, neuroscience documents how the brains of normal adults respond to images of recognizable objects and scenes.…

Distractor interference effects were compared between distractors in the periphery and those placed at fixation. In 6 experiments, the authors show that fixation distractors produce larger interference effects than peripheral distractors. However, the fixation distractor effects are modulated by perceptual load to the same extent as are peripheral…

Two experiments measured changes in binocular eye alignment from 1- to 6-month-old infants. Experiment 1 recorded these changes from 1-, 2-, and 3-month-olds, using corneal photography. Experiment 2 measured responses of 3-, 4 1/2-, and 6-month-olds as a wedge prism was placed alternately before each eye. (MS)

This paper explores the role of vision in reading and studying. "How Vision Occurs" discusses the functions of rods, cones, the cerebral cortex, and the receptor senses. "The Optometrist and the Educator" views the role of the optometrist in relation to student learning. "Eye Anatomy Terms" defines the ciliary muscle, optic disc and nerve, macula…

The saccadic eye movements, generated during a visual oddball task, were compared for 10 autistic children, 10 children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, 10 dyslexic children, and 10 typically developing children. Several abnormal patterns of saccades were found in the autistic group. (DB)

This annotated bibliography contains both opinion and research articles dealing with various aspects of vision. The entries are divided into four categories: visual acuity, visual perception, perceptual motor development, and eye movements. Within each category are entries presenting controversial and contradictory viewpoints and evidence enabling…